There are irresponsible people among us, making decisions every day which can kill us.
Point in fact:
Friday I picked up my nine year old grandson from school. We were going try a little catfish and crappie fishing in Lake Lavon, about 20 minutes from Plano. We picked up a little cooler, cold drinks, sunscreen, and some worms and hotdogs for catfish bait.
I checked the weather before we left. Winds from 285 at 20, gusting 35. A strong front will be pushing through around 7:30 PM, rain and hail expected.
So we had time to do some fishing. I wasn't worried about the wind because we would be sheltered by the dock office and restroom buildings that are on the dock.
I rigged out poles for catfish, but they weren't biting. So I told my grandson we would try to catch a few crappie. Sometimes they'll stay on the bite as the barometric pressure falls. I put a jig head and plastic jig on grandson's pole, and showed him how to drop the jig into a confined space and let it fall in an arc. Then I showed him how to keep the rod tip motionless except for intermittent twitches.
It worked! We caught five or six in an hour, then what I told him we had to go because the weather was getting worse. Large black clouds were moving in, and I showed him what gusts were.
I also told him about a trip a few years back when I saw a huge buildup appear along a line. The tops were at 35,000' in minutes. There were five of us, and we had two of our PWCs and a 24' open bow boat in the water. I directed everyone to put on a PFD, assigned tasks to everyone, and told them to make haste.
Within ten minutes our campground was pulled up and stowed, the PWCs were hooked up and out of the water, and I was approaching the boat ramp as rain began to fall intermittently. I stuck it first try, jumped out and tied it down, and headed for the truck.
Now all this time people were watching us, puzzled and doing nothing. When my truck got to the top of the boat ramp, all hell broke loose. It began to rain so hard I couldn't see the road.
People on the beach were dealing with poorly secured boats that quickly broached to, and being perpendicular to the beach they began to dig huge holes as they thrashed in the wind. EZ Ups, tents, coolers, and all other kinds of impediments went flying.
We drove away almost in shock. I placed the success of my diagnosis of a large dangerous storm to a few things.
One, I checked out several weather services. I received info from NOAA weather radio, TV weathermen, and a call that morning to a FSS briefer. The 35 MPH gusts and developing T-storms along a fast moving front were the result of cold air of the front slamming into the moisture heavy air streaming up from the Gulf of Mexico.
We drove home, wet as rats running down the anchor rope, but we were safe. There were ten capsized boats on the lake that day, and four people drowned.
